BCCI reluctant to pay expenses of BCA election

New Delhi, Aug 6 (IANS) The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will tell the Supreme Court on August 11 whether it will pay Rs.10 lakh remuneration to Justice Dharam Pal Sinha who has agreed to conduct the Bihar Cricket Association (BCA) election after rival factions agreed to bury the hatchet and hold polls after a gap of seven years.

The apex court bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice R.K.Agrawal adjourned the hearing on BCA’s plea after senior counsel Amit Sibal, appearing for BCCI, told the court he would respond to the plea only after getting instructions from the apex cricketing body.

BCA has also moved the apex court seeking its nod for holding elections.

However, Sibal told the court that as a matter of policy, BCCI does not interfere in the intra-faction feuds of state cricketing bodies and indicated its reluctance to foot the bill for Justice Sinha for conducting the elections.

The election process involving 38 districts and 11 life members would take 45 days to complete with Justice Sinha having the last word on any dispute.

Appearing for BCA, senior counsel A.K.Sinha told the court that in the absence of a representative body, cricketing activities in Bihar were badly hit as no first class cricket match has been staged in the state for several years.

The senior counsel said despite Bihar having two cricket stadiums, not only national cricketing events like Test matches, One-Day Internationals (ODIs), Indian Premier League (IPL) games, but even domestic events were not being staged in the state and the stadiums lie unused.

As a consequence, the court was told that a large number of Bihar cricketers have left the state for greener pastures elsewhere.

Sinha backed by senior counsel Parag Tripathi told the court the BCCI is committed to pay an annual amount to BCA, which has not been paid for a long time and could be used to remunerate Justice Sinha.

However, Amit Sibal appearing for BCCI, told the court that Bihar was not being deprived of first class cricket matches including Tests and IPL matches as now the apex cricketing body has constituted an ad-hoc committee to hold matches in the state.

Pointing to the reluctance of BCCI to foot the bill for Justice Sinha, senior counsel A.K.Sinha told the court about the legal expenses that the apex cricketing body was paying to the lawyers, appearing for it in different courts including the apex court. However, he did not reveal the figures of the expenses.